Cathy DeForest
Ashland, Oregon

Cathy DeForest, founder of Jubilation Press, is a Northwest book artist whose work is inspired by found objects and poetry. She combines printmaking and photography to create intimate offerings of beauty and invitations to discovery. Highlights of her past 20 years as a book artist include founding two galleries, teaching in Italy, and creating Poets On the Loose. Her books are in international collections and have been exhibited widely including San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts Museum, Oakland Museum, Museo Etnohistorico de Artesanias del Ecuador, Brown University, Yale University, UCLA, the Library of Congress, and the New York Public Library. Cathy has a PhD in organization development and consults with arts organizations in strategic planning, including the San Francisco Center for the Book.

Website: cathydeforest.com

Our Immortal Soul
Abdulzahra Zeki, The Manifesto of the Poets of Baghdad, 2007
Translation by Inam Jab and Hassan Alnawar

One of the greatest vessels of human culture is the expression of writing. Our Immortal Soul is a tribute and a lament to that experience. The book juxtaposes the first forms of writing with the Manifesto of the Poets of Baghdad, delivered by ten Iraqi poets within 24 hours of the bombing of Al-Mutanabbi Street, the ancient bookseller street, in Baghdad in 2007. At great risk, these poets gathered to celebrate the long history of the street as welcoming and housing the art forms, written and pictorial, that have graced the rich history of the region. Our Immortal Soul elevates the vessel of language, both written and performed, as one of the greatest ways our culture is experienced throughout time. This container of human experience is being threatened daily across our world. This artist's book evokes the question: will the vessel of creativity and humanity prevail or will the vessel of destruction and horror win the souls of humankind?
Intaglio etchings, relief prints, custom portfolio box, miniature cuneiform made from paper clay.
11.25 x 7.75 x 1.25 inches; 29 x 19.5 x 3 centimeters. Created 2015.